`I Watched Everything Disappear`

POMPANO BEACH — Cynthia Nairn, a 14-year resident of Esquire Lakes, realized something was amiss when she looked out the window after midnight Wednesday and couldn`t see her neighbor`s tool shed.

``Then I just sat and watched everything disappear,`` she said.

The sea wall crumbled and sank; the picket fence that divided the Nairns` and their neighbor`s yards broke off, half sinking under the lake; one pole of the neighbor`s clothesline went under.

By morning Nairn`s entire back yard, as well as half her neighbor`s, was gone, swallowed up by what may be a huge sinkhole.

``It looks like a sinkhole,`` said Pubic Works Director Jack Gumbart, while surveying the property. ``I`ve been in Pompano 20 years and I`ve never seen anything like it.``

Representatives from the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey Office in Miami agreed that the hole, about 25 feet deep, 40 feet wide and 20 feet long, sounds like a sinkhole.

``It has all the earmarks of a washout,`` said David Schultz, consulting engineer for Continental Insurance. ``The only thing I can say positively is `move out,` because you never know.``

The firm`s representatives said their policy is to cover damage caused by sinkholes but not that caused by collapsed sea walls or washouts.

The Nairns` neighbor, Calvin Russell, who woke up Thursday morning to find half his yard missing, his 12-foot-tall tool shed floating in a lake and 20- foot mango trees growing under water, is insured by Allstate. Allstate representatives refused to comment Thursday.

Roy Reynolds, director of Broward County Water Resources Management, said the hole sounds like more than a washout.

``Sea walls wash away in Broward County all the time,`` he said. ``And erosion usually slowly eats up the yard. This obviously wasn`t a normal erosion.``

Nairn said that she, her husband and 28-year-old son moved in with her two daughters Thursday afternoon after Gumbart recommended that they evacuate the three-bedroom house at 750 NW 23rd Terrace, which was cracking down the center.

``The whole thing could fall in the water,`` he said, motioning to the back of the house.

Nearby residents said they were concerned their houses and property also might be in jeopardy.

``I think the same thing is going to happen to my yard,`` said Rosa Royster, who lives six houses away. ``The whole house might go.``

The Russells and Nairns said they were still in shock Thursday after their yards sank and become part of Esquire Lake, just west of Powerline Road and south of Hammondsville Road.

Ed Lane, a geologist for the state Department of Natural Resources, said sinkholes frequently occur in areas rich in limestone.

Carmen Causaras, hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Services in Miami who did a comprehensive study on the geology of Dade and Broward counties, said sinkholes occur when water percolates through limestone, causing an air pocket.